Intro to Story: Heroes of the Three Kingdoms is based on the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The story begins at the Battle of Ke Zhou in 187 AD, where Liu Bei, the main character of the story, leads a small army of militiamen to aid in the attempt to destroy the Yellow Scarves, a group of rebells that have been plaguing China for almost one decade. Cao Cao, the commander of the reinforcing cavalry, comes in soon and together they defeated the Yellow Scarves. Then, Liu Bei went to Gong Sun Zhan, one of the great nobles of the north, and Cao Cao took a position at Luo Yang.

However, the destiny of the two men was to meet each other again. Soon, in 189 AD. Gong Sun Zhan and Liu Bei both joined the Eight Duke Alliance, which Cao Cao organized. Together they shall challenge Dong Zhuo, the most powerful man in China. This is where the story of Three Kingdoms began.

Characters:

Liu Bei (Xuan De) - The descendant of the Prince of Jing Shan and the founder of the Shu Han Empire. Although of noble birth, he was actually very poor for most of his youth. He made his fame when he defeated the Yellow Scarf army in 189 AD. He is the adopted brother of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.

Guan Yu (Yun Chang) - The adopted brother of Liu Bei and a symbol of honor and loyalty in Chinese history. In fact, a miniature statute of him is often found in Police stations in Hong Kong. He was the head of the Five Tiger Generals of the Shu Han.

Zhang Fei (Yi De) - The adopted brother of Liu Bei and Guan Yu. When Guan Yu was serving in Cao Cao's army, he said: "My brother Yi De is a much better fighter than me. He can take the head of a general in a battle like he can take a coin out of his wallet.". Zhang Fei's ferocity is very menacing. He was the third of the Five Tiger Generals.

Zhao Yun (Zi Long) - One of Liu Bei's most trusted generals and would later become one of the Five Tiger generals of the Shu Han. He is both cunning and brave.

Cao Cao (Meng De) - The founder of the Wei army and was dubbed the "Hero of Chaos". What he did was nothing short of amazing. He was the son of a middle class merchant and volunteered himself to destroying the Yellow Scarves. After attempting to assassinate Dong Zhuo, he organized the Alliance of Eight Dukes that almost succeeded in destroying Dong Zhuo. After that, he built his army and eventually conquered all of Northern China.

Xiahou Dun (Yuan Rang) - Cao Cao's cousin and most loyal follower. He is dubbed "blind Xiahou" because he is blinded on one eye. He lost his eye during a conflict with Lui Bu's army in 197 AD. Xiahou Dun is one of the fiercest generals in the Wei army and was given the title commander-in-chief after Cao Pi came to the throne.

Lui Bu (Feng Xian) - "In warriors, there is Lui Bu. In horses, there is Chi Tu". Lui Bu was perhaps the greatest warrior in the entire Three Kingdoms period. A master of the bow and horse riding, the great warrior is just as great and fierce as his steed, Chi Tu. However, Lui Bu had a poor sense of honor and loyalty. He served three masters before founding his own army. He was eventually defeated by an alliance formed by Cao Cao and Liu Bei.

Yuan Shao (Ben Chu) - Lord of Northern China. His family has been amongst the ranks of the "Three Ancestors" (three highest positions in the Han court) for four generations. Yuan Shao himself was a proud and arrogant man. He left Luo Yang in 187 AD because he did not recognize Dong Zhuo as the chancellor nor the new emperor, and went to northern China to build an army of his own. In 189 AD, Yuan Shao responded to Cao Cao invitation to forge an alliance against Dong Zhuo, and was named the commanding general.

Yuan Shu (Gong Lu) - A lord at southern China and half brother of Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao was a buffoon and had always been a midget in ability compared to his brother. He tagged along his brother and joined the Eight Duke Alliance, only to be a mere food transport manager. Yuan Shu became sour because of this, and contributed to the eventual failure of the Eight Duke Alliance.

Dong Zhuo - The chancellor of China and ruled China with an iron fist. Because his reign was so cruel, all the nobles in China rallied together to fight him. Defeated by the Eight Duke Alliance, Dong Zhuo burnt Luo Yang and fled to Chang An.

Instructions:

This campaign requires 2 speed settings. For the first scenario the cutscene, you need to play on normal (unless of course you don't download the music files) or the music will overlap. For the rest of the scenarios, it is recommended to play on the fast setting because the gap between each repition of the music will be rather big if played on normal or slower.

Unzip the campaign file into the campaign folder in your Age of Empires II directory. If you have music files (each music file is available for individual download), you must unzip them into the scenario folder under the sound folder in your AOE2 directory. The only exception the the music files is the "Intro Music", which you must put into the "stream folder" under the "sound" folder in your AOE2 directory.

Features:

- very accurate to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel

- RPS gameplay

- Interesting bitmaps

- The new "upgrade" units system, where you click on towers and pay gold to receive massive unit upgrades

- New upgrade heroes system

- Special weapon bonuses

- Gain an aura by gathering relics

- Unique music files from the game "Legend of Cao Cao" by Koei

- Custom modpack that changes the portraits of heroes and the initial viewing screen (extracted from "Fate of the Dragon")

Misc.

This campaign is made by Tsunami Studios. We are an Asian civ based team that specializes in making Asian campaigns. We would like to prefer that you ask us before posting our campaign at your site. You can contact me, The Conquistador, the head of the project, at stan_the_conquistador@hotmail.com. Thank you for your cooperation.

Music Files:

Edit: 08/11/08 The .zip includes Music File 1 to 9 and Intro Music.

Custom modpack:

Please download it from the link below and extract all files to your AOE2 directory.

Edit: The above link does not work anymore. If you have the Heroes of the Three Kingdoms Mod Pack please contact the Blacksmith Administrator.

FAQ:

Q: What is the upgrade system?

A: The upgrade system consists of 6 "upgrade towers" and money. Each time you click an upgrade tower (separated into 6 categories: infantry, cavalry, archers, buildings, towers, and siege weapons), that specific category gets upgraded. With the exception of archers, each click will cost you 1000 gold and will improve your units substantially.

Q: What are "Auras"?

A: Auras are hero generated magical effects. Only two heroes generate auras in Heroes of the Three Kingdoms - Episode I: Rise of the Heroes. These two are Cao Cao and Liu Bei. Liu Bei generates the Aura of Deprivation, which drains all resources from all enemy players every 5 seconds. Cao Cao generates the Aura of Famine, which drains food from all of HIS enemy players every 5 seconds. Auras require relics to activate and upgrade. In other words, the aura is activated when you obtain one relic and will upgrade to level 2 when you have 2 relics. You will be notified when it is activated or upgraded.

Q: In "Taking Xu Zhou as an Obligation", I die when I am savin the purple town! What gives?

A: You must rush to the ORANGE town (revealed on mini-map) and save its castle. There are some villagers you will get outside the city, use them to repair the orange castle.

Q: In "The Eight Duke Alliance", the game crashes when it change view to the fat guy!

A: Turn off the music by removing the music files from your sound/scenario folder.

it's probably just my comp, but I need a password to download the music and mod file(s). So what is up with that?¿?

The Conquistador

Posted on 07/17/01 @ 12:00 AM

For all of you who cannot download the music, please right click the link, and then select "save target as".

HolyPunk

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

:/
that stills leads upto dl it, and then it says password and all of that, I guesse to bad for me then :(

Blueman

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

RPG??!! This campaign has NO rpg elements in it AT ALL! If you played it, you will say that it's more like a "Dpg" : Death-match playing game!

I swear, except the first scenario (a cut scene), the entire campaign is the EXACT same: you build up a bunch of units and go siege and town with 10,000 hp+ enemy units. I'm not kidding! Try it out and see!

This campaign is ridiculous. . . one of the largest campaign when it comes to taking up computer spaces, and one of the most boring campaign, yet! You just basically do the SAME stuffs over-and-over the entire campaign!

I have a suggestions to people who are reading this, If you really want to see what this campaign is like, I advise you to download the 1meg campaign first. Do not waste your time downloading the 8 meg music files. Play the campaign first, and if you think it's worth playing, then go get the music.

Tsunami StudiosFile Author

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

LOL. You must be less mature than you seem. Problems with your statement:

1) It says "Mix", not RPG. So what are you arguing? And there are more types of gameplay than RPG and B&D. And B&D and RPG are wide genres, meaning that a lot can qualify for both.

2) Music is not mandatory, so your recommendation is already noted on the description.

Go back home and stay there for two years. You will probably be mature by then.

3) Have you actually tried to play the campaign? If you like boring RPG's where you don't do anything, that's fine. If you didn't play it, then you have no right to comment.

Blueman

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

The Conquistador, I have played the entire campaign, and that's the reason how I know it's the same. Except scenario 2, scenario 3-6 were built using the same, boring, five-minute-designed, dull looking, noncreative map. They were practically the same map, and what type of game do players get to do? How about siege the town, defend the castle for 20 min, and siege more town. . .boring like heck!

If I want to play a Death match game, I'd go to the zone! At least DM games on the zone have SPACE and GOLD to support your army!!

william_chen_

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

I like the music! Pretty nice!

Question about the second scenario: when I tried to attack the fort of HU LAO GUAN, my enemy troops retreated and about twenty to thirty of them got stuck at the double gates. They were on ally stance towards me so they didn't even attack when I came to them. I couln't attack them either, so I could not advance beyond this level. Is this supposed to happened?? I've read the objectives many times, and I'm still confused on this :(

Tsunami StudiosFile Author

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

Thank you for mentioning the bug, William Chen. Please take the time to download the new version of the campaign file. Thank you.

Ballista_Turtle

Posted on 07/18/01 @ 12:00 AM

LMAO, Blueman you need to keep your remarks a little less "flamey" or they might bite you back in your @ss.

"RPG??!! This campaign has NO rpg elements in it AT ALL! If you played it, you will say that it's more like a "Dpg" : Death-match playing game!"

Blueman, what is your problem? Stan clearly said that this campaign is a Mixed type of game. "It says "Mix", not RPG. So of what are you arguing about? And there are more types of gameplay than RPG and B&D.
And B&D and RPG are wide genres, meaning that a lot can qualify for both. "-quoted from Stan. Then right after that comment you said that he was talking about this campaign being an RPG, well either your brain is a peanut or you can't read,
you will need to check discriptions and hints on scenarios before you make your smart-alec remarks.

"I swear, except the first scenario (a cut scene), the entire campaign is the EXACT same: you build up a bunch of units and go siege and town with
10,000 hp+ enemy units. I'm not kidding! Try it out and see! "

Like I said in the top paragraph, this campaign involves towers, they serve as a type of "Upgrade System" when you click on the towers they make your men more robust and more wise to use in battle.

"This campaign is ridiculous. . . one of the largest campaign when it comes to taking up computer spaces, and one of the most boring campaign, yet!
You just basically do the SAME stuffs over-and-over the entire campaign! "

Unless you run off of floppy disks or your keeping your drived filled with text files filled with your empty remarks (and they must be preety big ;) ) this campaign can manage to only get up to about 10 mg. I would hate to listen to you
whine about Starcraft scenarios ;). How could you say the map is the same thing over and over? Unless your proving you have a far sited eye-site ONCE AGAIN or that you didn't even try this campaign. If you actually tested this then you may
make you dim witted remarks, but your comments make absolutely no sense.

"I have a suggestions to people who are reading this, If you really want to see what this campaign is like, I advise you to download the 1meg campaign first.
Do not waste your time downloading the 8 meg music files. Play the campaign first, and if you think it's worth playing, then go get the music. "

You have no right to tell people what to download or not. Besides some campaigns must include the music in order for them to have the campaign's feelings... Did you even get the H3K modpack, that really enriches the game ;).

"The Conquistador, I have played the entire campaign, and that's the reason how I know it's the same."

Um... This campaign has some of the most realistic eyecandy effects, see the "Seige of Xia-Pi", I designed that one, it took me quite a while, and my eye-candy skills were approved by Inquizative himself ;).

"They were practically the same map, and what type of game do players get to do?"

What is your GPA in school? You are far-sided, you have less then 8mgb of space on your comp and you can't read...
The game testers we got to test this game were no other than TNK, The Vampire Slayer and Inquizative.

" How about siege the town, defend the castle for 20 min, and siege more town. . .boring like heck!"

Arg... So your so bad you only got up to the third campaign? Sheesh, what a play tester you are.

"If I want to play a Death match game, I'd go to the zone! At least DM games on the zone have SPACE and GOLD to support your army!!"

I played this game over 3 times i have never ran out of gold. I was always able to FIND it.

So in conclusion,
Mr. Blueman,
This kind of smart alec crap is not needed in a well made comments page. I take this insult a strict REVENGE because of what Stan said in
the "Sd Forum Ranks" page. This campaign was very well done IMO and you don't need to insult a person hard efforts for your well being nor for your entertainment.
I have a 40% chance for being banned for telling the truth but I said it anyways.
BTW, when are you getting your glasses?

Blueman

Posted on 07/19/01 @ 12:00 AM

I see that you guys are still not old enough to take some criticisms :). Don’t go personally attacking other people just because somebody didn’t think highly of your scenario, alright?! Especially Ballista Turtle, try to refrain from using bad words :). Sorry son, if you found my honest comments on the campaign itself offensive.

I criticized the campaign. Yes I did. And I did for many good and obvious reasons: the campaign was poorly designed, when looking at the map design aspect of it. Scenario number 3-6 used the same map!! And no, I don’t need my glasses to see that :) I would probably not criticize this much if the map itself was nicely done.

I know game players like to look for things such as “eye candies”. Well, I hardly see any in this campaign! If you would like to prove me wrong, please tell me which scenario in the campaign that had the so-called “eye candies”. Please state specifically what the eye-candy is, and its EXACT location on the map, because believe me, I’ve look over the entire map and there was hardly any!!

As to the Balance of the map, saying that this campaign was filled with chaos is absolutely an understatement!! Archers having almost 10,000 hp? You have got to be kidding me?!! (to other players reading this, I’m NOT making any of these up. You can find this Superbly “Skillful” enemy archer in scenario 5!!) I lost at least two full formation of cavaliers, who have been upgraded from the “tower” which cost 1000 gold, not counting the cost for the 80 cavaliers I have made!! The large gold pile right next to my Town center was of little help since the place was TINY, which in addition, was cramped up with little bamboo bushes that popped up here and there, making it extremely difficult to place the mining camps. Heck, the enemy units (having lots of hp) were made using “looping triggers” while my units cost tons of gold, which took time to be mined!

This campaign is not an RPG style scenario?? Sorry I got mixed up this version from the demo version. If you call this campaign “mix”, then what do you call Death-match games? The entire campaign, except the 1st cut scene scenario, was a death match game. I do not know about you, Ballista Turtle, but I’ve played quite a lot of random maps and death match, usually in rated 1 rooms :). Well, I played scenario number 5 at least four times, even on moderate settings, and I couldn’t even beat it!! Since you, Ballista Turtle, claimed that you played tested this scenario, I would love to see this:

Play it and make a recorded game of it, and prove to me that you can beat it!! Post it here at the BlackSmith and prove me wrong :) !! (…and I don’t want you to go change anything in the scenario).

I doubt you ever play tested this from beginning to the end!! Yeah sure!!

P.S. Ballista, don’t act so preposterous by using Inquizative’s name to back up the bad designs in the map. Quote “my eye-candy skills were approved by Inquizative himself”.
I have seen the nice Texas map designed by Inquizative, so I find what you have just said difficult to believe. Could it be that Inquizative have lowered his standards . . no that can’t be right. I think you're just did what people commonly referred to as "bluffing"!